Lainey Wilson Brings an Unfinished, Unfiltered New Song “People Need Jesus” to the Country Music Hall of Fame
- All Country News
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By the time Lainey Wilson sat down onstage at the Country Music Hall of Fame, guitar in hand and grin at the ready, the room already felt like church.
Courtesy Of Country Music Hall of Fame
On Tuesday afternoon, Wilson previewed a brand-new, still-breathing song titled “People Need Jesus” during the From the Heart Wranglers songwriter round, joined by co-writers Trannie Anderson and Dallas Wilson. What followed wasn’t a performance so much as an invitation, into the messy, funny, convicting middle of a song that’s very much still becoming itself.
“This one’s a work in progress,” Wilson admitted with a laugh, before doing exactly what great songwriters do best: telling the truth before the melody ever settles.
The song, she explained, started the morning after a writing session, those liminal hours when ideas refuse to stay asleep. Lying in bed, Wilson began thinking about the people back home. The flawed ones. The familiar ones. The ones who make headlines for the wrong reasons and the ones who quietly mess up when nobody’s looking.
“I sent the first verse,” she said, recounting a flurry of early-morning texts that bounced between the trio. Anderson chimed in with a few lines. Dallas Wilson woke up to a phone full of ideas and jumped straight into the conversation. Somewhere between texts, coffee, and conscience, a song took shape.
The verses that followed were classic Lainey Wilson storytelling, sharp, Southern, and deceptively playful. Characters tumble through the song like small-town headlines: Hank at the bank skimming a little too much, Bart behaving badly, Gina pocketing candy for TikTok clout. Even the narrator isn’t spared. There’s confession woven into the comedy, accountability tucked into the rhyme.
It’s funny, until it isn’t.
Then comes the refrain, landing with quiet weight:
People need Jesus.
People need Jesus.
Not as a slogan. Not as a sermon. As a simple, almost weary observation.
Wilson made it clear the song isn’t finished. The bridge, she said, is still finding its footing born from a sermon Dallas heard at his church in Dallas about “sowing discord.” As Wilson wrote verses about other people’s flaws, conviction crept in.
“I don’t sew,” she laughed, “but I’m sowing this discord, and I know that it just ain’t right.”
That moment self-aware, vulnerable, and deeply human felt like the axis of the song. “People Need Jesus” isn’t about pointing fingers. It’s about recognizing how easy it is to become the very thing you’re calling out.
The closing lines turned inward and quiet, trading punchlines for prayer: reading a little more, praying a little harder, checking yourself before sleep. The room fell still not because it was told to, but because it wanted to be.
In a career defined by authenticity and grit, Wilson continues to prove that her greatest strength isn’t just hitmaking, it’s honesty. “People Need Jesus” may still be unfinished, but in its rawest form, it already says something many polished songs never manage to.
It reminds us that country music, at its best, doesn’t just tell stories about other people.
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